About Us

About Us

The Joe Glover Trust is a local children’s cancer charity, based in Hampshire, working with families and specialist children’s cancer units across Hampshire, Dorset, Wiltshire, West Sussex, the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands.

The Charity was formed in 2007 following the death of eight-year-old Joe Glover to Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.

What We Do

We exist to provide urgent financial assistance to families in crisis to help with the additional costs of caring for a child on cancer treatment. When a child is diagnosed with cancer, the family’s world falls apart leaving a devastating impact. Everything the family knows suddenly becomes uncertain as they face months and years of gruelling treatment. Many parents are forced to give up work or take unpaid leave to care for their sick child, but the mortgage/council tax /other normal household expenditure don’t go away so mounting debts are never far away. Whether it is helping with travel costs to hospital, helping with household bills, everyday living expenses or sadly funeral costs, we help ease the financial burden families’ face at this very difficult time by awarding hardship grants.

All children and young people living in Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Dorset, Wiltshire and West Sussex will receive treatment at the specialist children’s cancer unit, the Piam Brown Ward or the Teenage and Young Adult Unit (TYA) at Southampton General Hospital. They will also receive treatment at their local shared care hospital such as Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Winchester, Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth or Basingstoke, Poole, Salisbury Hospitals.

Our Grants

Our charity has been supporting children and their families at Piam Brown Ward since 2007 and has helped hundreds of families since then. Families of children can apply to The Joe Glover Trust for a financial grant.

Research has shown that on average it costs families an additional £600 per month to care for their child while on treatment: Cancer Costs – CLIC Sargent 2016 (https://www.clicsargent.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Cancer-Costs-Report-2017.pdf ). This is a huge amount of money to find when parents may have given up work or reduced their hours to care for their child. The biggest monthly expenses for families ere travel, food and parking with increased heatingbills and petrol costs also causing a great deal of worry.

To make sure your money gets to the families who need it, we work in conjunction with the Social Workers on the Piam Brown Ward and the TYA. They provide the vital link between the families and the charity. The family’s needs are assessed and validated and a grant application made to the Trust.

During 2018, 94% of the grants we awarded were for help with household bills and travel expenses to families really struggling financially.

Days Out Programme

We have developed a Days Out Programme where children and their families can escape for a few days from everything else going on. Over the years, we have taken children and their families to The Lion King, Shrek the Musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Union J, Diversity, Stomp! Paulton’s Park, Chessington World of Adventures and the Watercress Line.

Equipment

Having previously provided plasma, TV’s, laptops and Xboxes to Piam Brown Ward, we have continued to provide much needed distractions for the children in the form of iPads. We have also provided televisions for Northbrook Ward at Royal Hampshire County Hospital and a syringe driver for Basingstoke Hospital.

To find out more about how you can help children diagnosed with cancer and their families, please go to Support Us pages.